Hospital lost race against time

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As the water rose around Memorial Medical Centre, the main
generator ran out of fuel. In the darkened corridors, jammed with
fearful people, the temperature soared. Medical supplies dwindled,
and looters rampaged outside. Inside, the staff broke windows and
fanned elderly patients to keep them cool, but the weakest began to
die.

The centre's owners, the Tenet Hospital Corporation based in
Dallas, Texas, were desperately arranging an evacuation, after
realising no help would come from the government.

Some patients were loaded aboard boats. Helicopters hired in
Dallas raced to New Orleans as staff carried patients in their arms
up two flights of stairs to the roof of a parking garage to be
flown out.

Finally, last Thursday, with the city below them still flooded
and in chaos four days after the storm, doctors William Casey, John
Walsh and the head of the hospital, Rene Goux, climbed aboard the
helicopters.

But the revelation on Monday that 45 bodies had been recovered
from the hospital renewed questions of why the city had failed to
evacuate its neediest residents in time, and why the hospital was
not adequately prepared to sustain itself until help arrived.

Dr Walsh and Dr Casey acknowledge that the traumatic
circumstances contributed to the deaths of some of the most
frail.

"This was such a massive catastrophe, I don't know that anything
could have been done differently," Dr Walsh, the hospital's chief
of general surgery, said.

A spokesman for the owners said they had expected help from the
authorities if the hospital had to be evacuated. Though after the
hurricane blew past New Orleans on August 29, they thought they had
survived largely intact. But the worst was still to come.

The 240 patients included about 80 elderly, long-term care
patients. Dr Walsh said that from the upper floors "you could see
people floating, swimming, trying to save their lives."

Patients on artificial respiration were kept alive by nurses who
ventilated them by hand.

National Guard assistance was sporadic and unarmed. "We had some
people trying to enter the hospital. We had gunshots and explosions
at night," Dr Goux said.

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1126377375403-smh.com.auhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/world/hospital-lost-race-against-time/2005/09/14/1126377375403.htmlsmh.com.auThe Washington Post2005-09-15Hospital lost race against timeDoug Struck in New OrleansWorld